How much of WoW is written? [Anne Groell's interview and the series' length, part ii]

[Edmure's Floppy Fish]

TWoW on the shelf by Christmas of this year.

It is known.

...

Bless your heart! GRRM will blood all these Unsullied with The Winds of Winter. Y'all will learn to lose all signs of hope as I did with ADWD. Just as the people who waited on AFFC showed me the light, I too must show you, so that you can teach the ones who think the announcement for ADOS will be revealed at the end of season 6.

[Sun]

October 2015 at the earliest.

[sifth]

I'm praying for October 2015. This year we the TWOIAF. Last year we, in States, got GRRM's ADWD paperback. The year before we had the Lands of Ice and Fire. All of them are late October releases to get ready for Christmas...Hopefully GRRM can knock this out in time for XMAS 2015! I'd be content.

Don't even remind me about that map book..........what a waste that was.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

I think TWoW will be released by Christmas. Here is my reasoning:

GRRM's schedule is filled with numerous Comic conventions this summer. Does this sound like the behavior of someone with a half finished manuscript and a mob of fans waiting for the next book? IMO It does not. i think he is pretty much done it.

If he is done then why havent we received a release date?

BECAUSE MARKETING!

What would create more hype for the next book:

a: releasing the date mid season of the popular TV show (tv only fans would go meh big deal i will just wait for next week's episode cuz reading is alot of work)--(prediction based on my friends..)

or

b: releasing the date the moment the season finale ends.

IMO B would create a larger hype than a because....

- not everyone who watches the show has read the books

From this POV, it would be ideal to release the book right after the season has ended and the hype is alive, not a few months later. Make the show watchers run to bookstores the day after the season finale got aired, not tease and give them four months to cool down and change their minds. The release date would be the second, maybe third decade of June 2014, and it would be known for a few months already.

[Mdoggy]

But why would the ppl who watch the show (+ have not read the books) read the 6th book when they have not read the previous 5?

by advertising the release date for the winds of Winter, they would be encouraging ppl who have not read the books to read them!

By releaseing it around xmas the tv watches who started reading after the finale would be caught up so then they would by TWoW.

[Mourneblade]

Bless your heart! GRRM will blood all these Unsullied with The Winds of Winter. Y'all will learn to lose all signs of hope as I did with ADWD. Just as the people who waited on AFFC showed me the light, I too must show you, so that you can teach the ones who think the announcement for ADOS will be revealed at the end of season 6.

I dealt with ADWD late release date TYVM. That being said Martin has no Meereen knot to deal with this time.

[Holy Sock]

Bless your heart! GRRM will blood all these Unsullied with The Winds of Winter. Y'all will learn to lose all signs of hope as I did with ADWD. Just as the people who waited on AFFC showed me the light, I too must show you, so that you can teach the ones who think the announcement for ADOS will be revealed at the end of season 6.

Eh. If it wasn't for the fact that the show would overtake the books a 2016 release wouldn't really phase me. Plenty of other stories that have had 6+years between installments.

[Jo498]

The problem for me is, that the last book took 6 (or parts of it about 10!) years to finish and it was not all that great (compared to the earlier ones completed far more quickly). I am all for waiting another year, if the book gets better. Only sometimes it doesn't.

I will not get my hopes up, Summer 15 would be great, but Fall/Winter 15 or early 16 is probably more likely. And I really hope GRRM stays healthy for another 10 years for finish the series (and I hope this for myself as well...)

[Daemon I Blackfyre]

George RR Martin:

The american equivalent of Kentaro Miura. Or viceversa.

The only difference being that...Wow, there are NO differences!

[Red Beard]

When posters bring the actuarial tables out, the discussion turns morbid and disturbing.

Well if its ok for me to see a dude's head popped like an over-engorged tick, then a little actuarial science should certainly be acceptable.

[l3ol3o]

I've always thought he would need at least 8 books. There are so many important plotlines that still need to be resolved. Someone made a list in another thread that I wish I still had. There is just so much material that still needs to be covered.

Remember that the original plan was for the series to be a trilogy with ADWD in the middle. If Dany vs Aegon was supposed to be in the middle of the series we are WAY behind. If we are lucky we will get Dany vs Aegon in the next book.

So part 1 of the series is books 1-6 and people expect book 7 to cover parts 2 and 3 of his original plan? Unless he cut out a ton of the original story, we still have a long way to go. The 5 year gap getting scrapped added another 2-3 books to the series IMO.

[Red Beard]

Maybe we should get GRRM on the no-fly list so he can't keep going to conventions, book signings, etc, and actually get some work done!

[Red Beard]

Martin also is an advocate for one solution to the books vs. series timeline issue — capping the Thrones with staggered feature films. The proposal (which Martin notes did not originate with him) would give the author more time to finish his saga, while also giving producers the bigger theatrical budget that his as-yet-unpublished climactic battle scenes are expected to require. HBO leadership has been on record as not being a fan of this idea, however, as the network is primarily a television company, and its mission is to create compelling content for its subscribers. “Ever since I heard that idea I’ve been both excited by it — I think it would be great — and I’ve been skeptical about it because I’ve heard of a number of other shows that were [supposedly going to have movies] like Deadwood, Rome and even The Sopranos, and the only one I’ve actually seen is Sex and the City,” Martin says.

From http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/03/george-r-r-martin-ice-and-fire-publishing-plan-game-of-thrones/

[Alia Atreides]

I think TWoW will be released by Christmas. Here is my reasoning:

GRRM's schedule is filled with numerous Comic conventions this summer. Does this sound like the behavior of someone with a half finished manuscript and a mob of fans waiting for the next book? IMO It does not. i think he is pretty much done it.

If he is done then why havent we received a release date?

BECAUSE MARKETING!

What would create more hype for the next book:

a: releasing the date mid season of the popular TV show (tv only fans would go meh big deal i will just wait for next week's episode cuz reading is alot of work)--(prediction based on my friends..)

or

b: releasing the date the moment the season finale ends.

IMO B would create a larger hype than a because....

- not everyone who watches the show has read the books

by putting it at the end of the season right when the TV only fans are craving more, it gives the people who never read the books an opportunity to find out what happens BEFORE the next HBO season. This would drive up book sales because people will be like "aww the season is over but I want to know what happens next" *magic add for TWoW appears with release date* fan: "Instead of sitting around waiting for an ENTIRE YEAR, I can read the books!" (fan thinks he/she is extremely brilliant and proceeds to buy the books)

Suddenly reading the books seems like an easier way to fule a GoT addiction. (even though it is more work)

For people like us who are into the books so much that they post theories on the forums the release date announce date does not matter but

for the TV show only fans, a perfectly timed announcement for the next book could persuade some to read the books.

In conclusion: I think we will get TWoW by Xmas and it will be announced at the end of season 4 of GOT to maximise book sales

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Yes and No. One the book has to be completed then probably re-edited a couple of times before its even printed out, then selecting typeface plus cover art etc. That can take anywhere from 3-6 months for a first pressing etc. Unless that has already been commissioned and done. I do think that yes he probably has a good deal of the book done already but there are some kinks to work out along with a possible coincide wit a new season for HBO as well. While I have a love/hate relationship in how GRRM takes his time between novels better than it being spit out one after another.

AND that would be alot for them to READ if they have never read one book from the series.

[gumball]

Martin wins either way, because of the show and his turtle paced writing WOW is going to be the stunningly successful

[Chebyshov]

We should get a pool going. What's the over/under on Oct 2015?

[Ser Creighton]

I've always thought he would need at least 8 books. There are so many important plotlines that still need to be resolved. Someone made a list in another thread that I wish I still had. There is just so much material that still needs to be covered.

Remember that the original plan was for the series to be a trilogy with ADWD in the middle. If Dany vs Aegon was supposed to be in the middle of the series we are WAY behind. If we are lucky we will get Dany vs Aegon in the next book.

So part 1 of the series is books 1-6 and people expect book 7 to cover parts 2 and 3 of his original plan? Unless he cut out a ton of the original story, we still have a long way to go. The 5 year gap getting scrapped added another 2-3 books to the series IMO.

He is not planning an 8th book and wants to finish in 7. He has not ruled it out but has no plans for 8 and thinks if there will be an 8th he wouldn't know till he is at least half way done with Spring.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/03/george-r-r-martin-ice-and-fire-publishing-plan-game-of-thrones/

Posted today.

[l3ol3o]

He is not planning an 8th book and wants to finish in 7. He has not ruled it out but has no plans for 8 and thinks if there will be an 8th he wouldn't know till he is at least half way done with Spring.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/03/george-r-r-martin-ice-and-fire-publishing-plan-game-of-thrones/

Posted today.

I know he isn't "planning" but GRMM is a atrocious planner. He originally planned this as a trilogy. He orignally planned a 5 year gap. He originally ADWD to come out a year after AFFC.

I believe he wants to finish in 7 but I just don't think it's possible

Here is a list of unfinished plotlines from another site:

1)The Lands of always Winter: George mentioned we would end up here, likely it is here where we learn mostly about the others. Maybe Uncle Stark makes an entrance as well.

2)Bran and the Gang: Whats going to happen to them?

3)Blood Raven: What is his end game? What is he going to do with Bran?

4) Coldhands: Who? What? Seriously, who is this guy?

5) Dead things in the water: What ever happened to the wildlings near eastwatch?

6)The Wall: Who is in charge now? Has it descended into chaos? Is Wun-Wun the wun in charge?

7)Jon "Ceaser" Snow: Dead? Wolf? Zombie?

8) Melisandre: See Bloodraven. What is her plan? Her motives?

9) Wildlings, Giants, a certain giant member: What is going to happen to the wildlings south of the wall now that Jon is (at least for now) out of the picture?

10) Winterfell: How long will the Boltons hold out?

11) King beyond the the Wall: How sorry should we feel for Mance and his lovely ladies? Were they responsible for every single one of the murders in Winterfell?

12) The North remembers: What are the loyal Stark bannermen (including Fats Manderly and the Umber crew) planning on doing about the Boltons?

13) Onions and Unicorns: What ever happened to lil Stark, Osha and Captain Mutha Fuckin Beard?

14) The Mannis: How is Stannis planing to win the Battle in the Snow?

15) Rhymes with Freak: Will poor Theon find redemption or just be served with some Heart Tree justice?

16)Queen Asha: Will Theons sister figure out a way to drag him back home again?

17) Iron Bank: Stannis sent some dude across the narrow sea to get troops. I dont even remember his name. This will likely be important though.

18) Greywater watch: People have been waiting since the Clinton administration for Howland Reed to come out of the swamps and start spreading some wisdom.

19) On the Road to Greywater Watch: A certain bastard may be pretty upset that his brother didn't just send him a text after learning that the two Stark Bannermen charged with naming a new heir to the King in the North got lost in the swamps for 13 years (and counting)

20) Heh: What is in store for the perps and captives of the Red Weddin?

21) Sends his regards: Is our favorite handsome, goldhanded, child-crippling, sister banging, kingslaying, smooth operating, recently reformed knight walking into a zombie trap? Yup.

22) Speaking of Zombies...: What is the Ladies stonehearted plan? Does it involve Tom o Sevens and the Frey Wedding? What did she do to Brienne?

23) I wonder where that fish did go? : Blackfish is missing. Will he attempt to rescue his nephew on the way to Casterly rock?

24)The ladder: Will Littlefinger succeed in his plan to marry Sansa to Harry the Heir?

25) The Mad Mouse: Will this lil fella steal Sansa and take her back to Kings Landing?

26) The Bastard of the vale: Will Sansa ever do something on her own volition beside play in the snow and brush her hair?

27) The lil Bastard of the Vale: Will poor Sweet-Robbin just kick the bucket already?

28) Ser Gendry: Will THIS bastard ever do something to validate his inclusion in all of this?

29) Greyjoy vs. Greyjoy: Over on the Iron Islands its King Crows Eye the cunning and sinister magician against Damphair: the ex drunk who found purpose via medieval CPR techniques. Who will win? Knowing GRRM they both get eaten by a kraken a few chatpers into Winds.

30) Manderly and his Ships: Did he say he was massing ships? I think he did...

31) Dragonstone: What ever happened to poor Ser Loras?

32) The Rock: GRRM mentioned that we will be seeing Casterly Rock for the first time in the next two books. My guess is that the Queen is going home.

33) Kings Landing: After Kevens run in with the little birds, who is in charge now? No one talks about this but it seems important to me.

34) The Faith: These guys kind of came out of left field. What are they planning with their new military?

35) The Trials: Two pretty ladies are in for some faith style fun, one of which even has a Frankenstein style fighter she named after her late husband.

36) Qyburn: What is this guys deal? See Coldhands. Seriously whats up with Qyburn?

37) Tyrell bannermen: What are the Tyrells planning on doing with the large amounts men marching to Kings Landing?

38) Varys: After Tywins Death, Has he just been running around inside the walls the whole time? Also, see Bloodraven, what is your deal?

39)Robert Strong: I said before he was a Frankenstein style monster, I was just guessing though. For all we know it is two of Varys` little birds standing on each others shoulders.

40) Ser Bronn Blackwater, Lord of Stokeworth: He is gathering sell swords, naming kids Tyrion, and just generally not giving a fuck. Typical Bronn. (As a side note, am I the only one who finds it funny that a sellsword ends up being named "Blackwater"?)

41) Tyrells need them ships: How are the Tyrells dealing with those feisty Ironborn?

42)Intrigues in Oldtown: What is Old Sam up to? What ever happened to that girl he liked? That kid? Something about a crazy magician/maester crossing the narrow sea to meet the Mother of Dragon? Some Dornish chick dressed like a dude is mixed up in all this too. Oh! not to mention...

43) Our Good Friend Pate, or was it Jaqen? : A magical shape shifting assassin is also mixed up in the intrigues of Oldtown.

44) The golden company: Refreshingly straight forward. Aegon Targaryen has landed and now he is conquering stuff in the Stormlands. Typical Targ... or IS he?

45) Ariannes sexcapades: Doran Martell has sent forth his daughter to figure out the deal with the Targ invasion 2.0

46) YAR: New pirate captain (pirate lord?), likely that Waters guy who Cersei in charge of the ships in Kings Landing. The story needed this.

47) The man with the plan: Doran Martell is sitting on his ass bossing his family around as per usual. This time his plan has something to do with poor Balon Swann and schlepping him around Dorne.

48) Darkstar: I am the night, I am on the run from Aero cause he gonna put an axe in me.

49) Myrcella: Poor thing is likely already traumatised for life; although knowing GRRM Myrcy is going to get lost on her way back north and run into a dude named "Ramsey"

50) As the final Westeros plot point: I should mention that Krakens were sighted off the coasts of Dorne. I dunno but to me that seems like a big deal. Now for the plot points across the narrow sea.

51)BRAVOS! : Our favourite little killer Arya is training to become a shape shifting assassin (psh, saw that coming). Where is GRRM taking this plot point? Smart money is on plot point 50 and 51 coming together in some spectacular way.

52) What ever happened to...: This is an honest question. What ever happened to the crew of the ship Tyrion rode with Prince Aegon? We know what happened to Connington, what about the others?

53)The Imp: Yup, it took 53 plot points to get to our second "Big Three" main character. Although stuck outside Meereen, Tyrion - as per usual - has plan, which will decide the fate of little Penny, Brown Benn, and our favourite slave trading spy, Jorah Mormont.

54)Meereen and the other free cities: War is going down between the free cities, GRRM will reveal to us why we care about all this.

55)Daario: Handsome fuck, what ever happened to him?

56) Ser Grandfather: Charged with the defence of a middle eastern style city across the sea from his homeland, Baristan must defend Meereen as the city is attacked by all manners of freaks and slaves. (Psh, saw that coming). Oh, and two dragons are on the loose around the city.

57) The various leaders of Meereen: I don't even know their names. At this point I hope Drogan eats the lot of them.

58)The Iron Dummy. Planning on making a grande aquatic entrance the battle of Meereen with his flame hand and dragon horn. Victarions entrance to the Slavers Bay story line is just gonna be so awesome.

59)The Mother of Dragons: When the sun rises in the west, and mountains crumble into dust, only then will Daenerys just get on a fucking boat already. The last we saw of our third main character she had come full circle by shitting herself in the desert. Some people on horses came as well. She also has a big fuckin Dragon.

60) AND FINALLY... Quaithe: See Coldhands, See Qyburn. Who are these people? Why do they have to be so weird?

Oh you thought we were done? How wrong you were. Here are the more general plot ideas not routed to one location.

61)Invasion of the Others: All of westeros is in danger of being run over by evil, undead summoning ice elf things. About 50 people in Westeros know about this, even less seem to care.

62) Prince that was promised, Azor Azai, Stallion who mounts the world, Dragon has three heads, etc: Are all these prophesies ever going to amount to anything?

63) Gods, seasons, Magic: Are we ever going to get an explanation of how all this malarky works?

64) Dragons: At some point, Westeros is bound to get a little roasty

65) Knight of the laughing tree: Who dat?

66) Promise me Ned: Promise me you will never have an inner monologue which makes any of mine and your past clear. In fact, promise me that you will mostly think of me when your doped up or half asleep.

[Caerl Targaryen]

I know he isn't "planning" but GRMM is a atrocious planner. He originally planned this as a trilogy. He orignally planned a 5 year gap. He originally ADWD to come out a year after AFFC.

I believe he wants to finish in 7 but I just don't think it's possible

Here is a list of unfinished plotlines from another site:

[ ... shortened for brevity ... ]

Many of those don't necessarily need hundreds of pages to resolve in a meaningful way. Some definitely need a lot of time since they're a large part of the main plot. But many do not. With numerous POV characters converging or at least on tracks that will be converging, it's entirely possible that many of those will get resolved at the same time or will be resolved as a result of the POV characters colliding.

Other points on that list may never have a clear cut resolution. Not everything needs to be wrapped up neatly for the series to conclude.

[IRON BANK]

Many people would still buy his books. Almost all those who are fan now and perhaps some hardcore Unsullied show fans would buy them. What he does miss out on are hundreds of impulsive-I-want-to-know-how-it-ends-sales of Unsullied who can't wait for the conclusion in the show, plus many bookreaders who would buy a hardback copy of his book instead of waiting for the cheaper paperbacks. I think that would have been GRRM dream scenario, having the final book published right before the start of the final season.

So, that's not going to happen and that's a pity. But I don't think GRRM would necessarily care. He doesn't need to do it for the money anymore, the show has given him plenty of that. Now, he just wants to finish it all and leave a legacy.

I agree. Slight addition, Sansa seems to have gone to tWoW territory this last episode.

If it happens the way you describe it will be truly sad. not to be able to read a master piece before the dumbed down version is received. Also it would seem the real fans of the story will once again be trumped by ratings and fanboys. Unbelievable.